Jordan's Plight
by GreenWallsOfArt
Summary: An old story of mine, set two years before the original book, as one of Jordan Baker's early adventures before the golf-playing big-shot we know her as.  When a night out doesn't go as planned, Jordan must fix it before her reputation is endangered.


Jordan Baker looked forward to Saturday nights in the way that some men look forward to their nightly rounds in bed with their wives, or to a winning game of golf. She was never one to dawdle either, so she went about her room, rushing to grab her prettiest clothes. So long as her mother didn't know what she was up to, she would be all right.

Jordan's mother, Eglantine, was probably the one person in New York, maybe even the whole country that had not learned to give up the strict, silly ways of the turn of the century. She made sure that her daughter was in bed by nine o'clock sharp (she made Jordan go to sleep at eight o'clock on Saturdays and Fridays for the love of all that was good! It was no wonder that some of the other girls thought Jordan was boring, despite her reputation and supposed knack for golf.)

It was true. Jordan had the most traditional mother, and Eglantine did not like her daughter going amidst all the rubble that she called the twenties. Jordan liked it; it meant, goodbye killer corsets, and hello and good evening to loose, knee-length dresses that were all the rage. Jordan was, unfortunately, hardly one to follow trends very easily, so she always looked to her best friend, Daisy, for advice on those matters. Daisy was the kind of person who read fashion magazines in the ways that husbands read newspapers, and kept them in stacks under her bed, occasionally diving into them as dedicatedly as a religious nut to the Bible.

By that time, in her very early twenties, Jordan had learned well enough to know that if you were waiting for someone, you had to wait by your window, and stay quiet until that someone came for you. You couldn't make any noise at all, and if you did, well, the outcome would be left up to your caretaker or guardian. And tonight, Jordan intended to make it outside and into the city.

By the time the clock ticked the seventh hour, she was sure that she would be leaving soon. And indeed, she could already hear her mother begin to make noise downstairs as she tuned into the radio. The stations never worked in the house, and it was easy for her to just sit down and read for the rest of the night. Jordan grinned as she pictured her mother sitting down with a book, and the radio would come plummeting down on her head, because as far as Jordan was concerned, that was the only way to get her mother to adjust to the twenties. Everything from last decade seemed more like the last century, and Jordan hoped against hope that Eglantine would later realize that she had to change, because if she didn't, they were both doomed to be outsiders in a large city. Besides, what with these days, New York was not a place to be a doomed socially-challenged woman. After all, if Daisy's mother and other girl friends were fighting for Prohibition like any normal woman, then shouldn't Eglantine?

Jordan heard a clanging outside her window, and noticed Jacob Weinstein, the current object of her affections, standing below her window. He held pebbles in his hand, which was poised as though he were going to strike at the window again. He held back when he noticed Jordan.

"Jordan, good to see you, darling," he said. "You've been waiting long?"

"Hey, I think I could wait all night long for you." Jordan laughed. This was like that scene from "Romeo and Juliet" she had read a long time ago.

"You chose to be romantic tonight, right?" Jacob answered. "All right, come on down. I've got a good place we can go."

Jordan was a little uncomfortable doing what she knew she had to do, but she took a deep breath and prepared to descend. Climbing out over the circular sill of her window, she began to put one foot down on the open slit in the bricks of the house, and gingerly started to go down. Despite her slow speed, she was not faring so well, and she grew fearful that she would fall. She took such deep breaths, she thought she felt her lungs pressing her chest out of her skin. It surprised her, and scared her too.

Then, the sound of a honking cab nearby frightened her so much that her hands grabbed onto nothing, and she found herself plummeting through the air. The last thing she heard was Jacob's dismayed call of "What in the world are you…?" before she hit the hard, unforgiving ground, and heard a muffled crunch beneath her.

Jordan shut her eyes tight as she heard the crunch, and prepared to open one eye to observe the damage. When she did, she noticed that Jacob was lying still beneath her, with his arm pressed underneath her behind. When she noticed this, she immediately got up and tried to get him to stand up. Jordan grunted in frustration; she guessed that just standing helplessly around wasn't going to help her, or Jacob.

Trying something else, she propped him against the wall of her house, and inspected his arm, which appeared to be broken. Clenching her teeth, Jordan looked all around her, trying to find something she could use to make a sling from. Jacob needed care, and by god she would get him one. The last thing she needed was to be seen with a seemingly-drunken man with a snapped arm outside her house!

Digging beneath a few boxes, she came up with nothing but an old washcloth, and an old ribbon. Tearing on the washcloth, she punched two holes in the corners to tie the ribbon through. Gently, she slung his arm through the sling.

For a second, Jordan considered bringing Jacob inside and calling a doctor, but she shook her head the second that she thought about it. She could not get her mother involved in this, and if she did, the bedtime would be brought even earlier. Jordan hated nine o'clock badly enough, but she didn't know if she could withstand a _five_ o'clock bedtime. Eglantine could be that extreme, and Jordan knew it better than she knew anything about her mother.

Jordan glanced upward into the window. She cursed herself for not thinking about the consequences of climbing through it, and wished more than anything that Jacob hadn't come tonight, or that the cab hadn't come by and hocked so rudely and quickly at her. Jordan cursed Eglantine, for being an unusual woman, for not simply following the Prohibition ladies, or maybe even, carrying an axe like Carry Nation and smashing bottles of alcohol. Jordan would have gladly axed anything that came her way, she was that upset.

She began to think. She dare not go through the door, and not with Jacob, because she would be spotted like a red spot in a sea of white. But would she…go through…the window? Jordan would have laughed were she not so frustrated and disappointed in this turn of events.

Jordan cleared her throat and decided to make a test run up the wall. She put a foot on the wall, and slowly started up. Thank god these were no longer the times of stuffy old dresses and corsets, or she would have passed out before even taking the first step. I'm glad Daisy's not here, Jordan thought, because she would be laughing her sorry behind off seeing me being so ridiculous.

Jordan sustained her breathing, and found the ease with which she was moving. Her tense thoughts kept her somewhat stiff, but she was nonetheless making progress.

From down the street, she could suddenly hear the banshee-like shouts of young ladies walking towards her house. Jordan stole a glance at them when she saw them emerge, and noticed that they were staggering on their feet, barely able to walk. There were bulging objects beneath their coats and their bloomers.

Watching them stagger drunkenly, Jordan recognized them. She had known those girls from school not too long ago- Gertrude Nelson, Justine McDonald, and Helena Burns. They weren't always that tipsy- well, well, they must have just come out from one of the new speakeasies, Jordan thought.

She took her eyes away from the girls and tried to concentrate on the task at hand. She had barely climbed another step when she heard a shout that was so high-pitched and uneven that there was no doubt where it came from.

"Jordan, darling," Gertrude cried out. She staggered towards the wall, and reached up to pull on Jordan's coat. When she couldn't reach, she jumped, and jumped again, and again, while Justine and Helena staggered closer.

"Going for a climb, honey?" Justine slurred.

"No, I'm _sitting_ on this wall," Jordan said sarcastically. If these girls didn't go away, she could get in trouble.

"You look ridiculous," Helena added. "Come downtown with us. I think you should be out on the night, and…" She screamed when she noticed Jacob lying on the ground.

"A dead body!" she screeched.

Justine followed Gertrude, and started jumping to reach Jordan. "You poor thing, you lost your escort," she said, pointing at the unconscious Jacob. "What you need is a drink. Come with us, please do."

Jordan was disgusted, her emotion threatening to boil over. "No, you don't understand. I need to get him in my…back to his…oh, never mind!" Jordan knew what she had to do, but she would have to be careful. First, she jumped down and turned to the girls.

"I'll come, but not for long."

With that, the girls started on their way, and Jordan dragged Jacob with her along the sidewalk, making sure that his shoes were grazing the sidewalk, and not his arms. If anyone came along, she would simply tell them that he was drunk and hurry along. She was struggling, but she was determined.

Jordan lagged behind the girls so that she could change course and get to Jacob's house. It was harder changing direction than she thought, because the girls kept chattering so loudly that it hurt Jordan's ears and glancing back to see that Jordan was keeping up.

"Look over there!" Jordan suddenly shouted, and when the drunken girls looked away, she ducked into another street, and grunted and groaned as she pulled Jacob away.

Finally, she reached his front door, and knocked. When a servant answered, Jordan quickly explained that Jacob was knocked unconscious and that he needed some water. The servant acknowledged Jordan's strength, and closed the door with a wave of good night.

Jordan made her way home, planning to get through the window quickly and get into bed. This was not the kind of night out she had planned, and was ready to sleep and then hope that Daisy would not ask many questions. Daisy loved juicy secrets and societal gossip, but the fact that things didn't go as planned, she would be chastising, and tell Jordan that she should just tossed Eglantine out the door and head straight for a speakeasy in rebellion. Jordan, in turn would have pitied Daisy for that. Daisy's recently-wed-to husband, Tom, kept a readily tight hand on her, and didn't allow her to go out unless he was accompanying. He, to Daisy, was a brute, and Jordan was quick to agree. That's why she was glad she still lived under the title of bachelorette, because there weren't too many decent men left on this side of New York.

Dismissing those thoughts, Jordan now faced the wall. Just like you did before, she thought, and started to climb. The ease came to her quickly, and so she was able to get in through the window. But then she heard a sound that came from her doorway, and much to Jordan's dismay, there was no mistaking it.

"Jordan, bedtime has now been moved to seven o'clock…sharp!"


End file.
